By CRAIG E. CAMPBELL
Do you want to make a difference? Do you believe America is becoming a socialist nation complicit with support from big corporations pandering to the woke?
I, for one, am tired of big corporations making political statements that kowtow to the Left. Really, I don’t care about the political viewpoints of big corporations’ leadership. I buy products because of what they provide in the marketplace. I don’t want these big corporation muckity mucks trying to tell me what I should believe about our nation’s politics.
Maybe it’s time to take a stand against corporate big-wigs who think their intellectual brilliance provides them the superior moral ground to preach to us about politics. They need to shut up and simply provide the best product that makes me want to buy their merchandise or service.
This recent flashpoint about the Georgia legislature changing the voting requirements to become similar to 37 other states, which ensures voter integrity and reduces the potential for voter fraud, is an excellent example of corporate America’s arrogance and lack of understanding about the American form of government.
I’m disgusted by big companies like Coca Cola, Delta Airlines, and Major League Baseball, worth billions of deciding it’s a good financial strategy for their investors’ bottom line to have leadership speak out against American democratic voting integrity.
Apparently they believe our election system does not need to verify that voters in American elections are legitimately qualified. These companies, and others, have decided their superior position as multi-million dollar corporations gives them the moral right to determine what should be allowed and not allowed in our democratic government process.
Take for example the recent irresponsible statement from Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian: “Last week, the Georgia legislature passed a sweeping voting reform act that could make it harder for many Georgians, particularly those in our Black and Brown communities, to exercise their right to vote.” How so?
The new Georgia voter law does no such thing. Let’s be clear what it requires:
- It increases the time for early voting in both primaries and general election.
- State and local governments are now prohibited from sending out unsolicited absentee ballot applications.
- Each county must now have at least one election ballot drop box.
- It restructures the Georgia Election Board to provide more state control in the election process, as was intended by the United States Constitution.
- It eliminates the signature-matching system used to use to check the identities of absentee voters. Instead, voters will have to provide their Georgia driver’s license number, the number on their state identification card, or the last four digits of their Social Security number, just like we do in Alaska. If they don’t have any of those, they can provide one of several alternative forms of identification, such as a copy of a utility bill, bank statement or government check.
So, let me ask Bastian, are you going to terminate service to all cities within the 34 states that already require voter ID? Of course not. You desperately want the revenues generated by a majority of Americans who live in these “fly-over” states that have voter ID requirements. You really just want our money! Careful now Ed, we may actually be paying attention to your woke political cheap shot. There are alternatives like United or American.
How about identification to get on your flights? Every time I fly on Delta, I must show an ID before I am issued a boarding pass. Are you going to eliminate the mandatory ID requirement when flying on Delta Airlines? Don’t give me the hollow excuse that it is a federal requirement; Delta has historically been at the forefront of lobbying Congress to require IDs when flying.
What about requiring Americans to have a passport when returning to our home? We haven’t heard Bastian preaching about the millions of illegal immigrants entering the US without passports. If they can enter without passports, why can’t I?
How about vaccination passports? Bastian has been quoted as saying he supports vaccination passports for international travel. Won’t that require some form of ID to confirm the person holding the vaccination passport is actually the traveler?
Since Bastian has such a high moral standard, I am confident Delta will be terminating all service to China. My mistake: Flying to China is a lucrative market, so Delta would never apply any political pressure on the Chinese Communists to change their policies. He has no problem with Uyghur concentration camps that have forced labor, organ harvesting, forced sterilization and abortions, etc. I guess human rights really aren’t as important to Bastian as Georgia’s voter ID laws.
Bastian is really nothing more than a pandering, hypocritical corporate suit trying to gain short term political advantage by riding the shirttails of a Leftist campaign to eliminate voter integrity in America.
Now just to be fair, Delta Airlines is pleased to accept an annual multi-million dollar fuel tax credit from the Georgia legislature and to receive millions in CARES Act funding from DC. So it’s obvious its corporation heads understand the value government provides to their corporate bottom line, so long as said government meets the moral criterion established by Bastian, except for China, of course.
I generally do not support boycotts, and don’t believe there should be one against Delta, despite their CEO’s blathering pontificating. Alaskans have always had nice alternatives to Delta Airlines. Whether it is Alaska Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines summer service, or any of the other seasonal carriers, Alaskans have choices.
Alaska Airlines has joined the international airline Oneworld Alliance. They now have more service to places that Delta also services, like nonstop flights to Seattle, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Phoenix. With the Oneworld Alliance, Alaska also has connection service to a tremendous number of domestic and international destinations.
Mark Twain once wrote, “It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” If you want Ed Bastian to know how Alaskans feel about his stupid statement against the Georgia voter ID law, simply fly Alaska Airlines.
Craig E. Campbell served on the Anchorage Assembly between 1986 and 1995 and later as Alaska’s Tenth Lieutenant Governor. He was the previous Chief Executive Officer and President for Alaska Aerospace Corporation. He retired from the Alaska National Guard as Lieutenant General (AKNG) and holds the concurrent retired Federal rank of Major General (USAF).
Sorry but I can’t participate in the boycott. I won’t fly Delta because their planes are old, their service is poor and their prices are too high.
Craig is the first to line up in support of Citizens United until the “people” disagree with his view.
Corporation are considered people according to the Supreme Court so they do have the right to speak their opinion.
I do not agree with Citizens United but conservatives help push through that law and defended it but now are like “what” ! When we disagree with the corporate direction regarding a issue than please shut up, when we like what the NRA is doing than it is OK.
I guess you can not have it both way.
Is Alaska Airlines still outsourcing their maintenance and repairs?
I haven’t flown them since the flight 261 crash in 2000.
Make no mistake about the racists who make statements like Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian did when he said: “Last week, the Georgia legislature passed a sweeping voting reform act that could make it harder for many Georgians, particularly those in our Black and Brown communities, to exercise their right to vote.” How can anyone read this without understanding just how racist this statement is? Does Ed think that black and brown people in Georgia are unable to follow the laws like all of those of every color in the 34 other states with similar laws? Apparently Ed thinks the black and brown communities in Georgia are somehow inherently inferior to the communities of other colors in Georgia and everyone of all colors in these 34 other states.
:
It is inherently racists to claim a person is incapable of something based upon nothing other than their race or the color of their skin. The left and the woke crowd are doing nothing more than sharing just how racist they truly are.
Well said Mr. Campbell!!
We are in between a rock and a hard place. Let’s remember: AK Air actually sold BLM gear on their website. So we have nothing but Woke, leftist, options when it comes to air travel…
Craig Campbell, outstanding article. But I do believe you should boycott Delta Airlines and all the other corporations that are being extorted by the Left. For example, American Express, Woka-Cola, Citibank, Bank of America, and many others. BTW, check out the Alaska Airlines Company Store. You will find “Black Lives Matter” T-shirts for $15. Even AK Air is susceptible to extortion. Many of these Boards of Directors need to remove their CEOs. Thanks for the great expose’.
Unified Boycott!
Amen
Yes no flying for me this last year.
Wearing masks, being told what I should believe in.
America Use to be a Free country. What’s happening, people are Sheep there Afraid to be open minded.
“I often find that those who criticize things are not able to explain why they disbelieve. It seems to stem from an ideology being spread through social media that you can ignore the facts if it feels good.”
Mark Mathews – taken from recent comment in Epoch Times news article.
Mark doesn’t appear to be famous, wealthy, accredited, or otherwise noteworthy, but I think his opinion is measurably better than most anyone else’s … and worth quoting.
I wonder if Mr. Campbell shares his aversion for corporate, political statements by the right, as well as the left. F’rinstance, AT&T, Verizon, Walmart, GM, Comcast, and Pfizer, among others, have supported candidates who actively support voting restriction laws and false claims of voter fraud.
“Maybe it’s time to take a stand against corporate big-wigs who think their intellectual brilliance provides them the superior moral ground to preach to us about politics.” Campbell equates the positions taken by Delta and others as being unacceptable because they present a political opinion as a moral argument. Shouldn’t that apply to both sides? Does he believe only the position he disagrees with should be censured? Doesn’t sound very fair to me. Or very democratic.
“Apparently they believe our election system does not need to verify that voters in American elections are legitimately qualified.” Apparently they have been. Georgia, the state in question, stated, after three recounts foisted upon them in an attempt to overturn (i.e., steal) the last Presidential election, that their election was the most accurate, and secure the state had ever had. Now, for some reason, they feel the “need” to fix it?
Looks to me like what they were doing was working pretty well. That is, unless you want to change the results by restricting voters who have been playing by the rules. Trump, honest only when he is talking about his ulterior motivation for doing something, said as much when he mused that unless voting can be restricted, Republicans will never win another election. Could that be the real reason behind all these bills? And what would “fixing” this entail? Making elections less fair and open? Making elections less poor? Making elections less black? Are Republicans that scared and insecure? If so, why? What are they really afraid of? Losing control? Losing out to democracy?
Alaska is playing this game. Bills have been introduced to fix election problems that do not exist. This is time poorly spent. The state has very real problems that need to be addressed without going on a witch hunting expedition to solve a problem that isn’t there.
GREG R. Election problems don’t exist and Gabby Ledoux should still be in office except for those fake made up fantastic accusations against her, which will surely be exposed as lies once the court sees all the bogus evidence against her. Why, we don’t need elections; the AEA and AFL-CIO know what is best for the people and can just meet in their union halls and fill out all the ballots so the stupid public isn’t bothered! That’s just like North Korea or Venezuela and it works great for them! Or we can demand valid elections with legitimate votes. But then progressives might lose.
Gen. Campbell, you should consider running for senator against Dan Sullivan, I believe he has lost his way. Or the swamp recruited him.
Greg,
Sorry you missed the point. I never stated that big corporations could not have political opinions and support political causes. However, if the Delta CEO were opposed to mandatory ID’s to travel on Delta, if he lobbied to eliminate passport requirements for American to renter the country when traveling abroad so that we are treated with the same human dignity that illegal immigrants get by not having to have a passport to enter the US, if he terminated Delta Airlines service to every city within states that have STRICTER voting restrictions than the new Georgia law, if he actually spoke out against the gross human rights violations by China (where Delta makes a lot of money), and if he stopped accepting government tax credits for the same state he is condemning, than I would not be expressing my outrage at his hypocrisy because he would be be consistent in walking his talk.
I am not opposed to corporate leaders expressing political opinions, so long as they are consistent with the actions of their company they lead and are applied equally in all situations. Ed Bastian’s selective morality is the problem. Sorry you couldn’t understand my point. Hope this helps.
Craig
We’re not talking about the laundry list of complaints you have listed here, Mr. Campbell. We’re talking about an attempt to limit the ability to vote of every American who is eligible to vote. Reports of voter fraud, especially in Georgia, have been, to use Mark Twains notable quote, “Greatly exaggerated.” If there is no problem, why introduce extra obstacles for voters to overcome? Perhaps to attempt to dissuade them from voting? That’s what Mr. Bastian is saying he is against.
There was no voter fraud in Georgia, at least if you believe the Georgia governor. Why does he want to fix a problem that doesn’t exist? One simple answer. Voter suppression, because he thinks the good ol’ boy gummint in the Peach Tree State will tumble into the hands of the demon Democrats if he can’t figure out a way to stop the demon Democrats from voting.
Voter suppression is nothing new in the south. Now it seems to be going national. Put up enough obstacles and maybe you can steal the vote. Trump got it wrong. He was the one who wanted to steal the election. Now the GOP is online and at work, putting their plan into action.
Want a dictatorial, oligarchy? Want a country that looks like Russia, or Belarus, or any one of a number of other tin pot dictatorships? Simple. Suppress the vote or give them only one candidate for whom to vote. Looks like that’s what Mr. Bastien is agin’. Looks like he’s in favor of letting everyone who is born here and dies here and makes his large or small contribution to society here should have a voice in deciding who will run the country. That sounds like democracy to me. That sounds like freedom
I think I understand your point. I think you are in favor of voter suppression. I’m agin’ it. I hope this clears things up for you. If not, I’ll be happy to help in the future. Have a nice day.
Greg,
Have you actually read the law and what it does and does not do? Clearly you have not. Against all the wailing and gnashing of teeth on the left, it does not do what the ill informed claims it does.
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